By:admni(PublicSource) | March 2, 2015

A PublicSource analysis shows those at risk within a half-mile on each side of rail lines in the state where trains haul more than one million gallons at a time of Bakken crude oil, which is highly volatile.

INN members love to share. You'll be able to learn from quite a few of your fellow INN members at next month's NICAR conference in Atlanta. By our latest count, 33 staffers from INN and our members are scheduled to speak on panels or give hands-on classes at the conference. That number likely will keep […]

Lauren Fuhrmann of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism spoke to CJET, an event where independent investigative and community news organizations can gain business development and strategic planning skills to make their organization sustainable in the long term.

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The Investigative News Network is providing a new Policy on Editorial Independence for its member newsrooms.

The policy, approved by the INN board of directors during a meeting on January 5, 2015, is intended to set expectations for donors to member organizations and help ensure that they don't try to exert influence over the members' editorial process. While there are many different business models among INN's more than 100 members, most nonprofit newsrooms are funded largely by philanthropic foundations and private membership. Though it is entirely optional, INN suggests its members adopt the policy, post it on their website and provide a copy for each of their funders. Policy on Editorial Independence for INN member organizations. We subscribe to INN’s standards of editorial independence as follows:

Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization.

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INN members love to share. You'll be able to learn from quite a few of your fellow INN members at next month's NICAR conference in Atlanta. By our latest count, 33 staffers from INN and our members are scheduled to speak on panels or give hands-on classes at the conference. That number likely will keep growing as more panels are finalized and lightning talks are voted on ahead of the conference March 5-8. Reporters, editors and technologists will be sharing best practices on all kinds of data analysis, mapping, statistics, news app development and design, programming, and newsroom management.

More Collaboration Resources

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They are heirs and heiresses, self-made millionaires and philanthropists. They are health care CEOs, financial analysts, venture capitalists, general contractors, scientists, authors and lawyers. They are some of this nation's biggest "Power Players." The Investigative News Network and some of its member newsrooms have taken a unique look at the largest campaign finance donors from each of these states to candidates and committees in federal elections and all 50 states. INN used data from two of its members, the National Institute on Money in State Politics and the Center for Responsive Politics, to analyze the top individual donors from about a dozen states.

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The rising number of food imports into the United States is overwhelming the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is tasked with inspecting much of the seafood, fruits, spices and other food items shipped from abroad, a collaborative investigation by two Investigative News Network members has found. FairWarning's reporting found many concerns with the FDA import inspection system. The FDA today rejects about the same number of shipments of foreign food as it did a decade ago – when imports were less than half the current level. The Food and Environment Reporting Network drilled down more closely on seafood, finding that though the FDA and some other federal agencies inspect a portion of imported seafood, the safety net still doesn't catch all of the potentially diseased or unsafe food. The FairWarning story also was published by some McClatchy newspapers and other INN members, and the FERN story was picked up by Medium.

More Fundraising Resources

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It is the year 2014 and mobile technology is already advancing many aspects of journalism including crowdsourcing, geotagging and augmented reality. For the nonprofits that rely on donations, however, mobile fundraising presents an intriguing opportunity toward sustainability. But how quickly is mobile technology moving into the realm of fundraising? That's a question Richard McPherson tackles in this latest piece titled 'Mobile Fundraising: Why aren't we there yet?'. McPherson, a San Francisco-based fundraising consultant, looks at the challenges of mobile fundraising, why it's so hard to do, and how it has evolved. For any organization that has considered doing mobile fundraising, he offers this insight:

Learn the facts and issues. Your schedule should include at least a quarterly webinar on mobile giving from Heather Mansfield, Darian Rodriguez Heyman, or from one of the mobile campaign companies listed here.

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Kickstarter has launched a new category dedicated to funding journalism projects, the company announced on its blog today. Journalism is now one in a list of 16 categories, each with their own subcategories, including subcategories for journalism projects that are based on audio, photo, print, video and web.

"To us, that means it’s more important than ever to make sure journalists have the tools and resources to try new things — whether they’re professionals looking for innovative ways of funding and sharing their work, or ordinary folks with a hunger to tell the stories around them," the company said on its blog. Explore the journalism projects here and tell us what you think.

More Journalism Resources

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The Investigative News Network is providing a new Policy on Editorial Independence for its member newsrooms.

The policy, approved by the INN board of directors during a meeting on January 5, 2015, is intended to set expectations for donors to member organizations and help ensure that they don't try to exert influence over the members' editorial process. While there are many different business models among INN's more than 100 members, most nonprofit newsrooms are funded largely by philanthropic foundations and private membership. Though it is entirely optional, INN suggests its members adopt the policy, post it on their website and provide a copy for each of their funders. Policy on Editorial Independence for INN member organizations. We subscribe to INN’s standards of editorial independence as follows:

Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization.

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The Investigative News Network’s Legal Best Practices Guide is designed to help nonprofit news organizations reduce their legal liability by providing sample policies to be included on organization websites; sample contracts to be used for freelancers and other third parties; as well as other resources available to help alleviate legal risk.

DISCLAIMER: INN is not a law firm and cannot provide legal guidance to your organization. These pages are for informational purposes only. Always consult a practicing attorney in your state before using any sample materials archived in these pages.

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Johns Hopkins cryptography researcher Michael Green was one of the sources for ProPublica's huge story on the NSA's largely successful efforts to break or build backdoors into the cryptography that secures our messages and web activity, and he blogged about it:
"Let me tell you the story of my tiny brush with the biggest crypto story of the year. A few weeks ago I received a call from a reporter at ProPublica, asking me background questions about encryption. Right off the bat I knew this was going to be an odd conversation, since this gentleman seemed convinced that the NSA had vast capabilities to defeat encryption. And not in a 'hey, d'ya think the NSA has vast capabilities to defeat encryption?' kind of way. No, he'd already established the defeating.

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Today INN hosted a Google Hangout with representatives of the Knight Foundation on the topic of nonprofit news sustainability with the authors of Knight's recent report, "Finding a Foothold: How Nonprofit News Organizations Seek Sustainability." The report gives readers a deep dive into 18 nonprofit news organizations, how they bring in money to support their work, and how that's changed over time. Key questions addressed during this conversation include:

What's the right mix when it comes to devoting resources toward core editorial functions and efforts like marketing and fundraising? What are the most common ways news nonprofits create earned revenue? What doesn't work?

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So how does an old-school editor get help on data projects? "One of the great things about being a member of INN is that they have great data people, and fellow INN members have never failed to help us when we got stuck."